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 by Chris Davison, davison@intellcap.com
Dick Askin’s career in television has spanned decades and he’s seen the business from all sides, from local affiliate sales to production to executive leadership. For all intents and purposes, Dick is the public face of television, the man that Emmy viewers see speaking on behalf of the TV Academy and by extension the industry. I recently had a chance to sit down with Dick to discuss Emmys, gladiators, and the future of storytelling.
(Editor’s Note: last year’s new Primetime Emmy nomination procedures generated some controversy, with some notable shows failing to receive a nomination. After reviewing last year’s results, the rules have been tweaked again this year. Our July newsletter will bring you Dick Askin’s thoughts on the results of the new Emmy rules, you’ll hear from him just a few days after the nominations are announced.)
Q: Can you tell us about your background? What made you want to work in TV?
I started thinking about television as a career when I was in college and it was to some degree a process of elimination. I knew I didn’t want to be a doctor and I also decided early on that I did not want to go to law school. At that point I did not want three years of law school so as a senior at Rutgers trying to figure out what the next step would be I started looking around at communications and I was accepted into the University of Texas School of Communications on an ALCOA graduate fellowship. I liked the idea of communications because it was interesting and amorphous enough so you really didn’t have to have any specific goal or any specific industry in mind. While in graduate school I started thinking about what would be the next steps, I realized I didn’t want to be involved in film since it seemed like a very laborious process on a long timetable. I became interested in television and started looking for a job in TV immediately. I liked the idea that it was a business that you really could be creative in and enjoy those creative skills that you think you have. I also liked being in a business environment, I majored in Economics at Rutgers so I always knew I would be in business doing something. Initially I went to work in cable, which was way ahead of the curve, and the job I was in as a sales rep was going nowhere so I went to WNBC and got a job as a local salesman for them in New York. As an account executive at WNBC I went back and got an MBA at night from Fordham University and this gave me more of a working knowledge of the business. I worked in selling programs, so it was nuts and bolts, looking at programs and trying to figure out how much they’re worth, how long they’re going to be on the air, etc, and it’s been a love affair with television ever since.
Q: In your years in the business what has surprised you most?
The fact that television can constantly come up with different forms of entertainment that touch a nerve with viewers. The one thing that for me was a pleasant surprise years ago was when I was at Samuel Goldwyn and we did a pilot for a show called American Gladiators. The pilot was god awful, it really was, we didn’t have enough money and it was a very radical concept. Through a lot of perseverance and passion we were able to clear enough to go into production and the thing that dawned on me – and I’m still a very big believer of it – is that the reason you do a pilot is to learn your mistakes before you go on the air. We learned a tremendous amount from doing the pilot and when we actually got on the air, we had a template that turned out to be very successful. It was a very pleasant surprise that American Gladiators became the hit it was because it had such inauspicious beginnings.
Q: What kind of services do the Academy archives offer?
The archives are free and right now we have a certain number of interviews online through Google, which has been a great partner. I give a lot of kudos to Steve Mosko, the chairman of the Academy foundation, who kind of set that whole project in place. The archives give anybody an opportunity to learn more about the creative process, the production process, and how people were actually able to achieve that level of excellence. The archives give us a glimpse into a long history, the history of television by the people who are either in front of the camera or behind the camera, and who really made significant achievements. The four founders who set it up ten years ago really were pretty visionary because they wanted to capture the best of the best on video so that we have for posterity their views of the various aspects of the business we’re in. It was very prescient on the founders’ part to realize that a lot of the people who were very instrumental in some of the best moments in television aren’t going to be around forever and to start an archival process so that we could retain them forever, their thoughts, their views, etc. This is something that in my mind we need to do more of so that we can maintain and honor excellence in what we do. So often we’re all so focused on the commercial aspects of the business, the ratings, the ROIs, the backends, etc, that we forget that what really drives this business is excellent concepts with excellent execution by very talented people. The archives remind us of this from all aspects of the business. They really are something very special that doesn’t get nearly as much press as they should because they're not sexy like the Emmys but I think they're a valuable service for the industry.
Q: Television celebrates its 80th birthday later this year and its influence has been clear but what kind of impact do you think TV will have going forward?
If you include broadband, I think it’s always going to be part of the landscape. I just cannot envision a day, I don’t care if it’s 10 or 20 years in the future, where people with their families won’t want to sit down and be entertained. I think you’ll see different forms of television and different forms of entertainment, which is what makes the business so interesting. I think that television will always be part of the American psyche and American culture. I just cannot envision a society where it doesn’t play an important role. There will always be the overriding importance of storytelling and the human condition. People are interested in other people and their stories. There will always be writers who can come up with a compelling idea and there will always be producers and directors who can take that compelling idea and make it into a very visually exciting and engaging program. The process could change a little but it will still come down to storytelling and man has been doing that since we started writing pictures on the sides of caves. Now we are just getting better at it so I think it’ll probably be even more interesting in the future than it is now.
Q: The National Academy has developed new Broadband Emmys on its own, what happens next?
We feel that NATAS has essentially breached the settlement agreement of 1977 that both organizations have been ordered to obey. Broadband is certainly a new field and there’s a way for both organizations to work within their own sphere of influence. Our sphere of influence has always been primetime, theirs has always been news, sports and daytime. Their interpretation of the broadband awards ignores the precepts that have been set up and essentially they are attempting to award Broadband Emmys for some primetime shows and so for us it’s a pretty clear violation. I don’t know what will actually happen but we have filed for arbitration and we’ll let somebody who is much wiser than both organizations determine what the proper interpretation is because we feel that they are infringing on our rights and we are going to protect these rights aggressively. It’s not good for the industry to have two organizations that honor excellence bickering with each other, I think that it’s counterproductive and counterintuitive, and it kind of diminishes both organizations, so I’d like to have a resolution as quickly as possible.
Q: Will the ATAS and the NATAS ever reunify?
Last year when Dennis Swanson was NATAS chairman we had serious conversations about reunification because both he and I felt that one organization representing the industry would be more effective than two. The problem is the governance issues and the devil is in the details. Our board unanimously approved a proposal that we wanted to give to NATAS, essentially redefining both organizations - and, we were willing to actually put some money against the proposal to make it beneficial. We never really got far enough into the conversations because from what I understand, the NATAS board really just didn’t like the idea of reunification. Maybe as part of the arbitration process we’ll have the chance to put the reunification proposal back on the table. If we have the chance then I will do that.
Q: Any thoughts on the HRTS during its 60th Anniversary year?
I think I’ve been on the HRTS Board probably five or six years and I think it’s a very remarkable organization and I think that in the last two years the HRTS has done a very good job of raising the bar and taking a more assertive, aggressive approach to the business than in the past. The thing that’s great about the Board of the HRTS is that its members come from the highest levels of the industry, very diverse and very smart people. In the past two years I’ve seen a real surge in the professionalism of the HRTS Board and I just hope that the organization will continue to expand its mission because it’s a noble mission, a forum for peers interacting and networking and also educating and entertaining people in the business.
Q: What’s next for you?
That’s a good question, as far as the Academy goes, my term will end in December and as it turns out, I’ll probably be one of the longest-serving chairmen. A term typically lasts four years but two years ago we voted to change from a fiscal year to a calendar year and I ended up getting three more months on my term, so I’ll have been in office for 51 months instead of 48, which is a long, long time. I’m going to step down as chairman and I’ll be involved in Academy activities and in the business in any way that I can to kind of fulfill the mission of honoring excellence and being a productive member of the community. It’s a very interesting business, I doubt if I’ll be working 24/7, I haven’t done that in a while. I kind of enjoy having my own company and being able to pick and choose work on separate deals and projects rather than a full-time job and I’ll continue to be involved in a very intriguing, exciting and dynamic business.
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